Cotabato City (June2, 2017) – The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has established an operation and coordination center at the 6th (RedSkin) Infantry Battalion, Barangay Matling in the town of Malabang in Lanao del Sur that now serves as hub of information and mobilization of the region’s resources.

As of Wednesday, May 31, 3,023 individuals have been attended by the ARMM’s rescue team, which also served relief packs to 24,190 individuals in various evacuation centers. Around 218,665 individuals were in various designated evacuation areas or staying in the houses of their relatives.

Trauma, homes destroyed, civilians killed, and innocent children injured and exposed to violence are the images that describe the current situation in the Islamic City of Marawi.

After five days of being trapped in the town of Marantao, a few kilometers from Marawi City, the family of Rakima Domaug, 36 and mother of three children, is now staying in the designated evacuation center in Purakan Elementary School in Balabagan, Lanao del Sur.

Rakima, a teacher in Ilian Elementary School in Marantao, said she and her co-teachers were busy with Brigada Eskwela for the class opening on June 5 when sporadic firefights in Marawi City started.

While she and the other teachers were talking through phone calls on May 23, one of her co-teachers cried saying an unidentified group of armed men was waving black flags in Marawi City.

The situation in Marawi, the acts of violence, and losing livelihood would surely affect the residents’ future, Rakima said. She said she could not even answer questions from her five-year-old son how people could
kill others and why the firefight does not stop.